Chapter 18

Final Confession

For the next three days she did not speak to him. She couldn’t. But at the same time, she felt trapped. Part of her felt she had said enough – all she had to say – and yet somehow she could not bring herself to walk away either, because she knew that once she did, it would all be over and she would never be able to start again.

It’s like death she thought. It’s so horribly final. However well-prepared you think you are for it, when it comes to the event, it’s still a very big step to take.

She was prepared for death. Well, almost prepared. She had said her goodbyes to most of those that had mattered. To Giovanni, the only one, apart from Lorenzo, who really mattered.

And to Cosimo. At least he apologized in the end. I never forgave him for stealing my life, for that is what he did. He sacrificed me for the sake of the family. She felt her jaw ache and realized she was grinding her teeth together. But in the end, he paid the price – my price. I kept my son but Cosimo lost his bank. It is mortally crippled now. Serves him right.

And then there was Giuliano. She had said her goodbyes to him, although he, poor soul, had not been present at the time. But she had been sure he was watching, perhaps with his one remaining eye. She shuddered at the thought. They said the dagger had gone through his eye. Was he still walking round like that? Perhaps all wounds were healed once you got to heaven? Had that been true for Saint Catherine and Saint Sebastian and the other blessed martyrs? She hoped so.

And she had said goodbye to Maddalena. Always she had thought a kindred spirit, although they had been so different in so many respects.

She folded her clothes and absent-mindedly began putting them into one of her travelling chests. They would be leaving soon.

Maddalena’s face came back into her mind. Perhaps, on reflection, not entirely a kindred spirit. There was never any malice in Maddalena. Judging by her journal, she had forgiven Cosimo everything. Perhaps she was right. Each of us to her own. We find our own solace in our own way. In the end, you have to be true to yourself. Make your decisions and stand by them.

She folded another camicia and put it on top of the others. Dear Maddalena. Their final conversation had been a strange one. She had stood alone in the chapel of the Convento di Santo Damiano looking at that crushed pew and the great hole in the roof above it, and Maddalena, she sensed, had been somewhere nearby, invisible, yet watching and listening. And she had spoken to her, silently, and she was sure she had heard her reply.

Now only Lorenzo was left, and saying goodbye to him would have to wait until the very end. Judging by past conversations, it would not be an easy one.

PALAZZO MEDICI
May 1472

So, Lorenzo? The work is done?

Lorenzo is standing at a table, his head down in a book. He nods but does not turn or look up. What she can see of his face seems less exuberant than she might have expected, which lends credence to her worries. She ploughs on. ‘The tomb has been sealed and consecrated?’

He nods again, head still down. ‘As we agreed. It looks good. Andrea del Verrocchio has done well. A fine piece of work.’

Lucrezia swallows hard. He’s not making it easy for her. ‘And little Cosimino has been reburied in San Lorenzo alongside Giovanni and Piero?’

‘Beneath them, to be precise. Apparently there are rules.’ Still no eye-contact.

‘And the gold?’

Lorenzo’s face begins to lighten. ‘Downstairs. In the vaults.’ Then, with a flourish, like a magician completing a trick, he stands, turns toward her, and laughs. ‘It was just as the poem had said. One hundred and eighty thousand shiny new florins, all in leather bags, stacked all round the base of the tomb, in the centre of the courtyard. We had taken a coffin in which to remove the body – luckily a very large one, far too big for a six-year-old boy, so there was plenty of room to stack the bags around it. Then we re-sealed the tomb, closed the coffin and off we set, back here. It was that easy.

‘We unloaded the gold when we got here and the next day had the coffin, with Cosimino’s little coffin inside it, taken over to San Lorenzo, where he was placed reverently into the new tomb.’

‘Who helped you?’

He pulls a face, shrugs. ‘A couple of servants.’

As he replies he looks away again and she knows the morning’s rumours have some foundation. The household is buzzing with a story of two recently-arrived Medici servants who quickly disappeared again and have just been found, garrotted on the banks of the Arno.

She decides to approach him slowly. Her moment will come. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘With what?’ He’s being careful now, and obtuse, his head back in the book. It’s his way when he feels vulnerable.

‘With the gold. The gold you brought from the tomb. What are you going to do with it?’

‘How do you mean?’ He’s being silly now.

‘Well, it seems to me you have two basic choices, and I was wondering which of them you planned to pursue.’

He tips his head on one side and pulls a confused face. He can be infuriating when he’s like this, but she knows how to remain calm and chip away at him.

‘Either you pay it into the bank and make it solvent again. All you have to do is put it through the books as a repayment from the Milan branch of the money owed by the duke.

Still bending over the book, Lorenzo half-turns and sticks his lower lip out. It seems he’s not impressed with that plan.

‘Or you can take the money as your own and spend it on magnificentia; on becoming a great prince.’

‘I already am a great prince.’

‘An even greater one, then. You know what I mean.’

He nods, straightens, turns, but his face has clouded with suspicion. ‘What do you think I should do, Mother?’

She sees no point in prevarication. ‘I don’t think you need the bank. Not in the sense that we relied on it to build our political position in the past. So long as it makes a steady profit and pays reasonable dividends, we don’t need the great surpluses we once did. So if I were you I would let the bank fend for itself and I would invest in my greater reputation.’

Lorenzo nods. ‘My greater reputation. Yes.’

For a moment Lucrezia considers returning to the two dead servants. But she can’t just crash into it, she needs an introduction. She walks to the window, looks out, trying to look relaxed, and tries changing the subject completely.

‘I was thinking about Maddalena earlier today. What did you think of Maddalena?’

She sees Lorenzo’s head go back in surprise, but immediately he recovers and pulls a quizzical face. He’s thinking, calculating, inventing, off on another perhaps false, trail.

‘Olive oil.’

‘What?’ Now she’s the one on the back foot.

‘She was the olive oil of our household. The necessary lubricant. The essential ingredient.’ Lorenzo’s eyes are crafty, but confident. Her confusion must be showing. ‘When you prepare simples, of green leaves, you make a dressing, do you not?’ She nods, confused. ‘So. Contessina was the lemon juice; she always brought a tart sourness to the occasion. Cosimo was the garlic; basic, earthy yet essential. And Maddalena was the olive oil that bound it all together.’

‘Oh.’ She feels an unexpected pang of jealousy.

‘What’s the matter now?’ His eyes have softened slightly, but he’s still standing by the table.

‘Is there no place for your mother in this dressing?’ As soon as she has spoken she regrets her words. Lorenzo hates people fishing for compliments.

This time he smarms over and hugs her. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course! You were always the balsamico, one tiny drop of which transformed the whole flavour, and which eased our troubles and healed our wounds.’

Now she knows he is being unctuous and they both know she deserves it. Never try to cajole a compliment out of Lorenzo. He will either refuse or else smother you in honey-tongued flattery until you are embarrassed by the excess. Apart from Contessina, of course, who has always accepted such exaggerated treatment as her due and basked in it.

She decides to return to Maddalena. ‘So she was perfect, then? Perhaps you are right. She was more than a friend to me, in my childhood and … in my marriage.’ She shakes her head at a memory. ‘She never really forgave Cosimo, you know.’

He shakes his head. She knows he doesn’t need to ask what about. ‘No she didn’t, did she? She was the only one to stand up to him and to tell him what she thought, wasn’t she? In no uncertain terms I believe?’

She smiles at her son’s clear reminiscence of an event that took place long before he was born. ‘The only reservation I might have is that she was simplistic in her faith.’

‘In Cosimo or in God?’

‘In God. She may have come to see Cosimo’s weaknesses in his later years, and in all honesty there were enough of them, but she trusted God explicitly and absolutely.’

‘And you don’t? Don’t tell me your sacred poems are all insincere? Not after all these years?’

Lucrezia shakes her head. ‘Of course not. But there was a huge difference between our respective interpretations of our faith. Maddalena truly believed that God controls every aspect of our lives, that somehow he makes every tiny decision himself and all we can do to influence things is to offer him our prayers.’

Lorenzo sneers. ‘Or pay some fat priest to do so on our behalf. If you believe what they tell us, their prayers count much more than our own humble mutterings.’

Lucrezia waves his rudeness away. ‘Don’t be blasphemous. It’s inappropriate and it doesn’t help. Holy men have their place, Lorenzo, in your world as well as mine.’

Lorenzo wrinkles his nose dismissively. She understands. His trust in priests has been severely stretched since Giuliano was murdered in the duomo itself. But his original question has hurt her and she wants to answer it. If only for herself.

‘I believe in God. Absolutely and explicitly. But I have spent my life running businesses as well as trying to keep this family together. And what I have learned is that you can’t watch every tiny event unfold and you can’t make every single decision yourself. It’s impossible. After many years of thought, I have come to the conclusion that God places us in this world, each with certain abilities, attributes and, yes, weaknesses. After that, he tries to guide us, but the decisions in life are ours to make and the responsibility for the outcomes of those decisions ours too. Not God’s.’

Lorenzo is watching her thoughtfully. ‘And the priests?’

‘They are here to guide us. And to help us talk to God and interpret his responses.’

‘Like ambassadors?’

‘Perhaps. Something like that.’

‘Some of them with ambitions and purposes of their own?’

She nods, remembering how many ambassadors Lorenzo has dealt with in his life already. ‘Of course. Everyone has. It’s a logical consequence of God giving us options and choices.’

Lorenzo is grinning now and she knows that at least for the moment he’s on her side. Now is as good a time as any to ask him the question. ‘So what happened to the two servants?’

Immediately, Lorenzo’s brow is hooded again, and his expression guarded. ‘What two servants?’

She keeps her voice light, conversational. ‘The two servants who helped you lift the gold out of Cosimino’s tomb. The two who helped you fill the coffin. And empty it again later before Cosimino was re-buried in San Lorenzo.’

There’s a long pause. She knows her son is thinking hard. ‘They died.’

‘Died?’

‘Haven’t you heard? They were found dead this morning. On a mud bank beside the Arno. Opposite the Palazzo Bardi.’

‘What happened to them?’

Lorenzo shrugs. ‘No one quite knows. From what I heard, it seems they were garrotted.’

‘Who by?’

He shrugs again, dismissively. ‘I haven’t found out. I had paid them handsomely. Perhaps they waved their money about too freely.’

She looks at him long and hard. She knows he’s lying. And she knows she’ll never discover the truth. And nor, if they have any sense, will anyone else. She sighs. ‘Oh dear. What an unhappy ending.’

Lorenzo looks wistful and she knows he’s acting. ‘At least the secret’s safe now.’ He gathers up his sword, his dagger, his books and his outdoor clothes, and leans over her. ‘Must go, mother. Lots to do. Bye.’

Lucrezia shook her head. She had never dared approach the subject again. It was obviously impossible. Playing the part of Lorenzo’s mother had been a lifetime role, a task without end. On some days it had been like participating in a serious fencing contest. You could not just cross your fingers behind your back, say enough, and then drop your guard and turn and walk away. But difficult and sometimes uncomfortable as it had been, she would not have missed a moment of it. In the end, being Lorenzo’s mother had made up for all the other disappointments in her life – even the big one.

Now she knew the bulk of her life was in the past. Little awaited her in the future except death. Somehow she didn’t think it would be long now. Perhaps as little as one year. She hoped it would not be too painful when it came. But also not so quick that she was caught out… unfinished, unprepared. She would never forgive herself if she died with loose ends untied. She did have standards to maintain after all. And a reputation. Of sorts.

After a few days of prevarication, with much packing and unpacking of clothes, she finally made her decision. I will talk to the monk once more, at the end of the week. On Sunday. Somehow, she thought, a Sunday would be appropriate. Then he really should return to Florence and face the music. She had kept him long enough. And anyway, by then there would be no more to say.

Apart from the confession itself. She laughed inwardly. Only the hard part. And then it will all be over.

Sunday morning came and an enormous thunderstorm was raging. The rain was hammering down on roof tiles and yard-stones alike, raising splashes knee-high. Gutters were overflowing and the river was howling. A veritable torrent of thunderous, uncontrollable dark-coloured water. The sky was black, so dark they had had to light all the lamps and candles and now they had to close the shutters to prevent the violent little squalls from blowing them all out again.

They met for the last time, in the same room, as arranged.

‘Thank you for waiting. As I told you the day before yesterday, this will be our last conversation; my final confession. Tomorrow, it will be time for you to return to Florence and I … I shall go on to Pisa. And after that …’ Who knows after that?

She pointed him to his chair, but for herself she chose to stand. She had thought about it for hours and this was what she had decided. To be in a chair was to be a prisoner, and for someone already feeling constricted by her thoughts, that would have been uncomfortable.

No. Today she wanted him to be seated, held down, a passive receiver, while she had the opportunity to pace, to look out of the window for the inspiration she had so often gained there and to walk the stage. For this, being her true confession, it must be delivered faultlessly.

She had chosen not only to be on her feet, with freedom of movement to assist expression, but also to be dressed in a high-necked cioppa of pavonazzo, a careful choice, the dress brought with her in case of special occasions, such as funerals. It was dark blue, almost the iridescent colour of a peacock’s back, a sign, not specifically of mourning but more of occasion and by the knowledgeable, always recognized as such.

So here she was, standing, facing him, looking down on him as he sat captive in his chair in the corner, exactly where she wanted him.

‘Where do I start? I have told you something of my life, of the events that have happened to me and affected me and those which I, sometimes, have managed to influence myself. I hope in the process I have given you some insights into Florence, the city, its ways and the difference between some of its pretences and its realities. Now, as I reach the end of my story, I must look at my own life with a true and honest eye and confess my sins.’

Well, some of them. Perhaps not all.

She turned away and walked toward the window, already looking out for inspiration, for guidance. Already her mind was repeating the processes of recent days, thinking, filtering, redacting, editing the thoughts cramming into her head into what she should tell him and what she should avoid.

Her difficulty, the main reason she had delayed talking to him until now, was that her conversations with him, although designed to convince him of her truths, had so often, either through his words or by his simple reactions to hers had the opposite effect. Progressively in recent weeks his responses had influenced her, changed her, so that what she would have believed and said a month ago had shifted and now she found herself unsure exactly what she did believe.

The monk, she was not afraid to admit, at least to herself, had done well. He had listened to her. Listened carefully. And in the main, he had said little. But what little he had said – and more importantly, what she had read on his face – had shown how much he despised the way of life she had been describing.

She had also learned how cynical he was about the morality of the stances she had taken and the actions she had, for years past, accepted as normal and, on occasion, had actively tried to defend. And with her morality questioned by so perceptive an audience, she had begun to question it herself.

And there lay the problem, the great unanswered question. If this young confessor had rejected her morality and found it wanting, what would Saint Peter do when the great day came and she was standing on the steps? That final day, when it was too late to change anything?

At the core of the uncertainty was not the conduct of her own life, which, by-and-large, she still believed to have been an honest one, but her legacy. She had spent half her life confident that she had given birth to a great prince, one who would be remembered for generations. But now she found herself beginning to wonder whether, although pursuing her best endeavours with sincerity at the time, she had, in reality, nurtured something of a monster.

Lorenzo. Always an enigma; even in his youth. She returned to his friendships. Her son had always been surrounded by his brigata, the golden people, humanists, poets, sculptors, architects, painters, writers. But if she thought about them, remembered them, flooding precociously through her house and gardens, she had to admit that what she remembered most clearly was not people of intellect and creativity, as he had always liked to describe them. No, the most consistent common feature she remembered was their youth and their physical beauty. And not just Lucrezia Donati and Simonetta Vespucci, but the other girls, the low-born girls, those who had come and gone, usually under-dressed but always beautiful. Somehow they had never seemed to last very long.

And then there had been the boys. Some (very few in truth) had been like Leonardo da Vinci, who would cause your mouth to open in amazement at his creative ability, but who was, at the same time, decorative, slender and beautiful in his own right. She could hear his lute playing now, and watch him throw his long hair back as he caressed the strings. And his drawings … well.

Sandro too could leave you breathless with his work, although as a person she had always had her reservations. Privately that calculating, louche smile had always made her feel uncomfortable, and despite Lorenzo’s carefully-worded denial, her memory of late had kept returning to the knowing looks the two of them had so frequently exchanged, and she found herself hoping that the secret they reflected was not the one she feared; the one whose image she occasionally had to repulse from her consciousness.

And then there were the rest, like Alessandro the lute player and Jacopo Saltarelli, that boy who had appeared in the court case. She knew they weren’t truly talented artists. And what about that sulky little boy with the golden curls they said was a model at Verrocchio’s studio? The one Sandro Botticelli used to snigger about to Lorenzo and say he was addicted to zucchini and cucumbers?

She had ignored them, of course. Lorenzo in that sniggering mood had always been best avoided. But deep-down she had known what they meant. She wasn’t stupid. She had just been … how had Lorenzo described her once? Partially-sighted. And of course, knowing Lorenzo, he had meant it as a compliment.

All those pretty boys. What had they meant to Lorenzo? Almost certainly nothing. They had just been food. Something to be consumed. Food for the sort of appetites that weren’t discussed in polite company. But so what? The rich had always fed well and, no doubt, they always would.

But did that make it right? Perhaps it was time to see with both eyes now? The more she thought about it, the more she found it hard to believe that St Peter saw the world as Lorenzo saw it, even if her son did go to Mass every day.

She thought it was Luigi Pulci who had once said: “Lorenzo, glamorous, charming, brilliant and above all, powerful, Lorenzo was never the seeker but always the sought.” Was that, as she was sure her son would argue, simply the way the world was? She knew that with the possible exception of Lucrezia Donati none of them had really meant anything to Lorenzo. She could hear his voice now, a mixture of disbelief and ridicule. “Come on, Mother! If I am hungry and I see bread, I eat it. Are you suggesting I should consider the bread’s point of view before doing so?”

No, Lorenzo would never understand.

And now, since talking to Savonarola, a new question had entered her mind. Something she had never considered in all those years. What did those passing relationships mean to the others? To the young girls, proud to be deflowered by a loving noble prince? To the hungry wives, dissatisfied with their husbands and seeking true love elsewhere? And the pretty boys? What of them? Did they, perhaps, believe that their love for the great one had been (at least in their case) reciprocated, even for a moment? Or was the half-florin in their hot little hand the beginning and end of the matter?

Of course, Savonarola was biased in his view of these things by the experiences of his own youth, but even so. He had made her think and she wasn’t sure she liked the direction her thoughts were now taking.

She didn’t pretend to know the answers, of course. But now, at least, she was aware that the questions existed. At least in the minds of some others. And if they were basing their judgements on the monk’s perspectives, what other aspects of the life she had led Lorenzo into would they seek to examine?

The real question, she now thought, having spoken to the young monk at some length about it one evening, was whether people with real power had any responsibility for the imbalanced relationships that formed around them? Did the powerful prince, as a consequence of his wealth, have any special responsibilities toward the pregnant servant girl he discarded? Cosimo had shown the way with Maddalena and Carlo. But then he had loved her and she had proved to have quite extraordinary capabilities that few would have expected in a mere slave. And Lorenzo, she recognized, was no Cosimo.

And it was not just personal relationships that they might have to answer for. Lorenzo could have made peace with Pope Sixtus had he wanted to. It was pride that stopped him. And as a result money had been wasted, homes destroyed, lives lost. The behaviour of princes. Why did it appear so disappointing when viewed with hindsight?

The sacking of Volterra had hardly been his finest hour, either. She had avoided talking about that, knowing, even before the monk’s influence changed her perspective, that she had been ashamed of the whole episode. Lorenzo had used false information to pretend that their new alum mine was a threat to Mother Church and its alum monopoly. But the reality had been different. It had been imports of Turkish alum that had spoiled the price and it was not the church but the Medici Bank, with great unsold stocks of the stuff in its warehouses in Bruges, who had stood to lose the money.

Sacking Volterra had been unjustified – a petulant response to people made rebellious by circumstances. And building that great castle with its garrison? Surely that will simply breed resentment? You can’t win the hearts and minds of men with soldiers. Not in the end. An occupying force will always be resented, even if they themselves believe they have right on their side. The bitter truth was that Lorenzo had misused power. And the people knew he had.

The behaviour of princes. In victory, they say, you have to be magnanimous. It is a sign, they say, of a great prince. But unlike his father, Lorenzo had shown no mercy after the Pazzi conspiracy. What Francesco Pazzi had done had been wrong, but hounding the whole of the Pazzi family into extinction could really not have been justified. Women and children had suffered, innocent men too. Just because their name was Pazzi. I know parentado means that families stick together, she told herself, but some of these people had done nothing.

The behaviour of princes! What Lorenzo had been doing for the last few years was hardly something to brag about. Yes she had told him to avoid the trap Cosimo had fallen into. Make the people pay, she had said. But there were ways and ways. She knew that the old way was unsustainable, but already-rich men living off the fat of the land, incurring vast expenses only to lay the bills at the feet of the state, and then authorize the payment themselves, that too was wrong, and equally unsustainable.

Perhaps it would have been different if the bank had still thrived as it had in Giovanni Benci’s time? But the truth was they had let it go. Lost control of it. Left the branches in the hands of unsuitable, insufficiently-qualified people, people who were unsupervised, with insufficient regulation or leadership, and in an environment whose very rules motivated them to act irresponsibly.

Whose fault and responsibility had that been? In recent years, her son’s. And who had advised him? To a large extent, she had. She knew in her heart-of-hearts that she had acted petulantly. Maliciously. That was the truth of it. She had never forgiven Cosimo for marrying her to Piero. But how else could she get back at him? Only by attacking the one thing he held most dear: the bank. And when Cosimo had lost Benci and had been left on his own, old and not what he had been, and began making mistakes, she had seen her opportunity and she had acted. It hadn’t been difficult, she had simply let it happen.

Even before Lorenzo came to power, she had been selfish and angry. Even then, she had seen Francesco Sassetti mismanaging the bank and Giovanni presiding over the decay. And what had she done? She had let it happen. She had stood by and watched it happen and taken pleasure in allocating blame. Malice. It was a sin. An unforgivable sin.

And then, of course, there was the biggest lie of all. Had that been an act of petulance? In part, yes. An act of defiance? Certainly. An act of duplicity? Of course, in the greatest possible way. But it had also been an act of complicity. And both of Cosimo’s sons had been complicit with her. It was the one secret, surely, that she could not tell the young monk.

Just desserts, you might say, for wasn’t it she who had been complicit with their father, conspired with him and with Maddalena – albeit after their deaths, to defraud the bank and in that respect, to defraud Piero and Giovanni and their partner-cousin, Pierfrancesco, who although he did nothing, still owned fifty percent of the bank? But they had been cheated out of the gold Cosimo had hidden for Lorenzo. That was the truth. And she had played her part in it.

So in the end, she had cheated them all: Cosimo, Piero, Giovanni, Pierfran cesco – all except her beloved sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano. And even then, if you were completely honest with yourself, in making Lorenzo what he had become she had perhaps been partially responsible for causing Giuliano’s terrible death.

What an indictment!

And now Savonarola was sitting there, waiting for her confession, and already, the all-seeing God had heard her preparing for it. Even now, he was, perhaps, waiting to see what she told the young monk and what, at her last and final opportunity, she decided to hold back. She felt a sudden shiver of apprehension pass through her, as someone who has just sensed she is being watched. She took a deep breath. The moment had come and already she had gone too far. There was no escape now.

She was aware she had been pacing up and down, not speaking, and for a moment she felt the need to explain. But there was nothing left to explain. The truth was clear. She had declared this to be her confession and in so doing she had unlocked the door of her own waiting prison cell. There was no longer a way to turn back. Now she must enter it.

As she faced that reality and made her decision, she felt her mood change. She took three deep breaths. Feeling calmer than she had for days, she walked to the chair, stroked its back with her hand, then turned to face him and, with a sudden and decisive action, sat down.

‘My purpose today is to review and summarize my confession. But as you recognize clearly, my whole story over these recent weeks has also formed part of my confession. Every word of what I have told you is privileged. I shall not return to the city until the heat of summer is over, and I do not expect to live for another year thereafter. So you may not see me again. If you do, please make no reference to these conversations.’

She sat upright and lifted her chin. She was no longer speaking to a young monk from Ferrara, now she was speaking to God. ‘Now I seek redemption for the many sins I have committed.

‘With my father-in-law I entered into a fraudulent transaction, to remove money from the bank and to make it secretly available to my son, Lorenzo.

‘With my husband I neglected the Medici bank and in the process neglected its depositors, its clients and its employees. My husband did not have the capability to run the bank competently, but I did have the knowledge and from behind him I could have brought it back to success. But I did not. I allowed it to fail.

‘When my son inherited the opportunity to save the bank, in the form of the great sum Cosimo had put aside for him, I led him to reject that opportunity and instead I told him to use the money in support of his greater aim, to become a great prince.

‘With my son Lorenzo I have committed many further sins.’

Suddenly overcome by the magnitude of what she was about to say, she fell to her knees, and as she did so, the words started to spill out and once they started, she couldn’t stop them. They kept on flowing.

‘I confess that I have given birth to an ogre, a tyrant, a sadist, a monster. But now it is too late. If I am to prevent the collapse of the whole government of the city, which has become dependent upon him, I have to continue to support him, and to pray for his soul as well as my own.

‘Our sins are many. Together we neglected the bank, defrauded the bank, defrauding the cousins of their bags of gold, their inheritance from Pier Francesco.

‘When the people of Volterra rose up against his unwillingness to return the alum mines to them, I supported my son as, with inappropriate and excessive violence, he sacked the city, put down the people and cowed them into submission by building a great citadel in the heart of their ancient city.

‘I also allowed my son to commit revengeful dishonouring of many noble families, particularly the Pazzi, with vindictive pursuit of their families, until they feared for their very lives.

‘Together, we are guilty of the destruction of trust and respect, throughout the city, to be replaced by fear. We are guilty of bringing the Republic of Florence into unnecessary war, through pride, through deceitful misuse of the people, through the dissemination of false information and of the enslavement of the republic to the Dukedom of Milan, a treasonable act in the law of the Florentine republic.’

‘For these many sins, I ask forgiveness.’

For a moment she considered ending it there, but could she? Surely it was too late? Already God had seen her make her list and if she did not read them all out, she would have compounded the sin.

But yet? Antonio’s warning came back to her. This is not a man to be trusted.

Could she tell him? Dare she tell him? How could she find the words to describe such an event?

CAREGGI
16th April 1444

Lucrezia is in Careggi. She is seventeen years old and still reeling from the shock of being told, three days ago, that she will marry Piero. In six weeks she will be married. She has been brought to Careggi by her beloved Giovanni, Piero’s brother, to talk about the marriage. She assumes his role is to talk her round. But now this. Nothing prepared her for this.

‘Please don’t look at me like that, Lucrezia.’

She is finding it hard to speak. Even – perhaps especially, to the man she loves. The man she has loved for perhaps half her life. ‘I … I feel doubly deceived, Giovanni. Deceived by my husband-to-be, even before I am due to marry him, and at the same time, deceived by you – the one love I have had in my life. How can you both do this to me?’

He flaps his hands helplessly. ‘What can I say? I admit I have fathered a child with this woman. No, I don’t love her but she made herself available to me and she was …’

‘Attractive? You lusted after her? Despite all your soft words to me you were lusting after another woman?’

‘It was nothing. She was … available. That’s all.’

‘So you bed any woman who is available? Giovanni! How can you sink so low? Do you not realize how such actions diminish me? Me who loves you?’

The hang-dog expression and flapping hands show he has no excuses. She knows he knows her too well to attempt to divert her anger with clever speeches. ‘I cannot excuse myself. What is done is done. And I am not, even if I would wish to be with all my heart, betrothed to you.’

That’s one point she has to accept. The truth is, she has no hold over him now and he has no obligations to her. ‘But why Piero? Why should he pretend to be the father, when he is about to marry me? Why does he humiliate me that way?’

‘As I told you, because there is a very good chance I will be made a cardinal. And that will benefit the whole family. If I were to acknowledge a child now, my chances would be ruined. So generously, in my interests and for the sake of the family, Piero has agreed to tell the world the child is his. And by doing so before your marriage, he sought to avoid embarrassment to you. The child and the events that created it pre-date your announcement.’

He gives her the Giovanni special look – the puppy dog embarrassed ‘please help me’ grin. ‘Please understand. Please? We could delay the announcement until after your marriage, if you prefer?’

Exhausted, she nods. She can never beat Giovanni. He always talks her round. But she won’t give up completely. ‘Perhaps that might be better. But do we have to do everything for the family?’

His head tips from side to side. ‘It’s not just for the family. Our agreement, the agreement Piero and I have come to, has benefits for you and for me too. And, in truth, for him.’

She frowns. ‘Why? How? In what way?’

He takes her hand. ‘In the interests of parentado, Cosimo has chosen to marry you to Piero. But, and this is difficult to tell you … He can never give you children. Piero is impotent. He can’t even – you know – do it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Oh come on. Boys – brothers – we talk about such things.’

‘You mean I won’t have to …? With Piero?’

‘Exactly. Not only won’t have to, but from what I know, couldn’t even if you wanted to.’

She gasps, although whether with shock or relief she is not sure. The prospect of making love with Piero had been a part of the nightmare. ‘So I will never have children?’ He pulls an awkward face but doesn’t reply. ‘And if you are to be a celibate cardinal, the Medici male line will end here?’

Giovanni has his puppy face on again. ‘Well, I didn’t exactly say that, did I?’

‘She shakes her head. This is all beyond understanding. ‘What then?’

‘Listen. As head of the family, Piero needs sons, as you say, to continue the line. But as he has admitted, he cannot father children on you. So …’

‘So?’ She can almost but not quite guess what’s coming. After Giovanni’s last revelation, anything’s possible.

‘Well, as the child Maria shows, I can. So Piero and I have come to an agreement. What you might call a reciprocal agreement. That you and I will make children and that he as your husband and head of the household will publicly accept them as his own.’

She stares at him. She thought she understood the Medici. But this? She is speechless.

Giovanni smiles. ‘Neat eh?’

‘Neat? Is that what you call it? Almost incestuous adultery and you call it neat?’

‘Almost incestuous. But not actually. And anyway, nobody need know. Piero gets his children and you and I are, to all intents and purposes, married.’ He stands back and looks at her.

She blows her nose. ‘But it’s sinful.’

‘It’s not. Not really. Not if we all agree. It’s pragmatic. It works. It’s what you and I have always wanted.’ The head tips from side to side once again. ‘Well, almost.’ He waits, looking at her as she thinks. ‘If after a little time you both feel it’s wrong and sinful, you could always get a dispensation from the pope. On the grounds of impotence. It’s preferable to an annulment. I’m sure he’d agree.’ He takes hold of her elbow. ‘Put it this way. It’s better than being properly married to Piero isn’t it?’

It takes her some time to agree. But she does. And in the end and by the time the shock and surprise have worn off, not all that reluctantly.

Lucrezia realized she was biting her lip. She glanced at Savonarola’s face, trying to visualize herself looking up, trying to explain.

You see there was the possibility – indeed a strong possibility – that Giovanni would be made a cardinal, and then this child, Maria, came along. The problem was, the mother was a noblewoman and related to the pope. It was too big a risk. So Piero agreed to declare the girl as his own and to promise to look after her as a Medici. He told me the truth at the time and I, shortly to marry him, and wishing to please, and still loving Giovanni and willing to do anything for him, agreed to bring her up as my own.

He might believe that.

It was only when he brought the matter up in the context of the pope’s dispensation, that I fully realized what my husband and his brother were telling me, that he knew he could not give me a child but that they believed his brother Giovanni could. Not only that, but in the interests of the family, they were both willing to be complicit in the deception. And it worked. Lorenzo was Giovanni’s son. And so was Giuliano. And so were the girls – all of them, although of course, Maria was not mine.

It was flimsy. Riddled with risks when you were talking to a priest. And a zealot priest at that.

It makes no difference. Lorenzo is a true Medici, of the same line and identical grandparents. And I am his true mother.

He wouldn’t swallow that, she was sure. It made no difference. She would have to do better than that. And then there was Piero’s position to consider. She couldn’t put that at risk. Suppose the monk began telling everyone?

Only Lorenzo and I and Giovanni knew the certainty of this. I never told Piero to his face that Lorenzo was not his, and he was careful never to ask me. But of course he knew. It could not possibly have been otherwise

She closed her eyes and heard her own words. How would they sound? How would he respond to them? Silently she tried to rehearse them.

And now, I must confess to one greater sin. With my brother-in-law I committed adultery. In my defence, I shall say that it was with the agreement of my husband, who knew he was unable to give me children. It began when we applied to the pope for a plenaria remissio. Piero told me he had sinned in saying that Maria was his.

Dare she say it? She would have to accompany this confession, more than any of the others, with a strict warning.

Now you share this information under the privilege of the confessional. On sufferance of excommunication and of death. For make no mistake, if ever word of this gets out, Lorenzo will know the source and he will take terrible revenge.

But would it work? Could he be trusted?

She opened her eyes and looked at Savonarola, her mind fighting against itself.

He was looking at her now, with an intensity that made her feel uncomfortable. What did Antonio say? In the name of religious penance, he almost tortured the young novices.

There was something wrong with that look, that stillness, that degree of concentration. She felt herself swallow, throat dry, afraid of him.

And then, like a great lizard, his tongue came out and he licked his lips.

This is not a man to be trusted.

She looked at Savonarola and she knew. She couldn’t do it.

‘This is my confession of the sins I have committed. For these, my many sins, I ask forgiveness.’

Drained of all emotion, she looked at him for a reaction. For some time he sat, absorbing all that she had said. And, perhaps, also, all that he sensed she hadn’t said. Even now she knew he was willing her to say more.

She dared not say more. She could not say more. She must end it now.

‘Tell me what I must do to save my soul?’

Now the moment had come she was afraid, and she was finding his silence intolerable. That lick of the lips, she had felt as if she was waiting to be devoured. Had she said too much over the weeks? Could he be trusted? The truth was, she didn’t know.

He licked his lips again and this time he swallowed hard.

And in that instant, she knew he had accepted that he had just lost.

Appearing beaten, he gave his pronouncement. ‘These are indeed many and great sins. I shall have to consider my reply. I will send you my judgement in writing, once I have had time to consider the matter more fully. In the meantime, try to counsel your son to mend his ways, continue in your religious writings and give generously to the poor.’